Space Sealing Station

Within is the Herta Space Station, anchored above the Blue Planet, drifting slowly along its set orbit, with the galaxy lying quiet like a scroll waiting to be unrolled.

Herta was once troubled by her collection gathered across the stars: enormous in number, not easy to pack, and she herself had no wish at all to sort it.

The Interastral Peace Corporation enthusiastically proposed a plan, and from it the Herta Space Station, which seals away wisdom and secrets, was born. From top to bottom the station is fitted with containment measures laid out in exhaustive detail for the collection, striving to “cover all things clearly and reasonably”. Phenomena are stored in special containers, Curios are governed by Curio clauses, and thousands of collected items are classified and hidden deep inside the station for research.

The Corporation put forward an initiative to explore the mysteries of the stars together, and scholars searching for new ideas came here to do their research.

Most of the researchers admire Herta, and swear to carry out the planet's ideals and uncover the secrets of the silent stars in the cosmos. They explore the boundaries of life among the stars, argue for the fairness of reason, sketch out the landscape of the galaxy, decode the mysteries of ritual, and follow a spirit of inquiry that pursues a matter down to its very root… inheriting the ideal of “knowledge out of history”, they research freely and openly.

But once the Space Station entered orbit it ran in its own way, and Herta very rarely showed her face. Only then did the Corporation discover that the station was full of researchers, while the genius was nowhere to be seen.

The lighting of the various modules makes it hard to feel time passing, and only in the worn out breath of daily life can we trace any sign of it. Often two or three researchers argue without end until it gradually turns into a scuffle. There are security staff who go missing from the daily patrols and sneak off to sleep. Older employees tell the younger ones about their past romances, while a great figure disguises himself as a temporary cleaner and waits for his chance to rise again… Besides research, this place is life as well, and if you look outside you will know that the stars keep one another company.

Though their movement is restricted, the staff still speak of daily life aboard the Space Station in a romantic way: the galaxy is a poem full of meaning, and the Herta Space Station is slowly turning its pages open.

From the moment the Herta Space Station was founded, Herta lost interest in it. It holds the number one cosmic vantage point above the Blue Planet, leaving a circular track along its satellite orbit.

The Herta Space Station has passed through countless dangers, because its true owner, Herta, has passed through countless dangers as well.

Holding the strangest collection in the whole cosmos, it is like a fat pig before the eyes of starving diners, and it has never once been safe. Relying only on the security staff hired by the Corporation and a relatively advanced defense system, the Space Station is still not strong enough to stand against the malice of the stars… Herta foresaw this, and the Space Station traced one elegant arc that brought a long planned scheme to an end before it could even be carried out.

As for the intelligence skill that turns ill fortune into good, she describes it herself as “using the time other people spend reading books to brew coffee”.

Compared with the thieves who want to steal the collection and the various factions whose aims are unclear, the main threat to the Space Station still comes from its owner. If she suddenly has a strange idea, the Space Station feels it at once. A Curio that simulates the erasure of a fixed star, the warped gravitational field of a dark galaxy collision… When Herta is interested she gathers all sorts of items for her collection, and once she actually has them she usually loses interest and cannot even be bothered to look at them.

And so, even while Herta stays silent in the depths of space, the dangers of every shape and form that come from the collection hang over her head like a heavy sword.

The senior staff are used to dangerous situations and understand the principle that “secrets hide inside danger”. They guard a high level of confidentiality strictly, always store things by the standard, and conceal danger within peace… In the Space Station's tea room they are friends who joke together, and in the Space Station's Containment Zone they are highly skilled specialists. Here, a secret will always remain a secret.

In orbit near the Blue Planet, the Space Station runs on as usual. Like a pebble skimming across a frozen lake, it will keep gliding along, light and silent.